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| Heavy Weather | 
 enlarge | Author: Bruce Sterling
Publisher: Bantam
Category: Book
List Price: $6.99
Buy Used: $0.01
You Save: $6.98 (100%)
New (18) Used (72) Collectible (5) from $0.01
Avg. Customer Rating:  34 reviews
Sales Rank: 684939
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 320
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 6.9 x 4.2 x 0.9
ISBN: 055357292X
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9780553572926
ASIN: 055357292X
Publication Date: December 1, 1995
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Some wear on book from reading, we guarantee all purchases and ship all items via USPS mail.
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| Customer Reviews:
 One of his better ones... March 13, 2003
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
I recently reread this book, and I like it much better than some of Sterling's more recent books like Holy Fire or Distraction. The plot is less meandering than the other books, but does have many intersting diversions. Sterling casually throws off some ideas and commentaries about technology and society that could provide whole books for lesser writers. The tone of the book, while describing some scary and intense events, is nevertheless wry and affectionate toward the characters. I think this one holds up well.
 hack this storm September 24, 2005
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
Weather challenged everyone before the 20th century: if you lived in Kansas, how did you know what weather was coming toward you over the plains? Naturalists developed anemometers, wind vanes, barometers, rain gauges, and thermometers to collect measurements over time of the weather at particular locations. In the early 19th century, statisticians sought to interpolate among enormous numbers of measurements of wind speed and direction, humidity, temperature, barometric pressure, and rainfall to figure out what the atmosphere plans for us in terms of weather. Only when we distributed accurate clocks along railroad routes could meteorologists integrate this data into weather maps that showed the development and decay of weather systems over time and geographic space. In the 20th century, with aircraft, more complex statistics, and computers, we developed measurements and models of weather systems in 3-dimensions. (See, for example, James Fleming's Meteorology in America.)
The protagonists of Heavy Weather use nothing as handy as a thermometer, but rather a combination of modern and futurist tools, most of which require developing a personal knack to master. In addition to supplying a story, the extreme weather of the southern plains also serves as a metaphor for stormy relationships and the battle that one protagonist, Alex, wages with his own body, whose mysterious debility has seemed to control his life's purpose until he chooses to focus on helping his sister's troupe of roving weather hackers to understand the region. Medicine employs instruments much like those used to measure weather, but that reduce Alex's body to a mapped system that then does not respond to therapies as doctors project.
This is a complex book, gratifyingly over the top in areas, and mundane in some aspects of character development. Sterling's novels show that he is intent on examining basic interpersonal relationships, such as parent-child, lovers, siblings, colleagues, and civil society in extreme settings. As with all his books, his protagonists are heroes who are less than heroes, sometimes improbably sweet or strong.
In light of the mysterious, powerful weather on the U.S. Gulf Coast this fall, I especially recommend this book. As I listen on the radio and TV to the reasons that the public and officials give for not acting appropriately in the face of enormous risk, I think about the 500-year transition much of the world has made away from a mystical and toward a science-based understanding of "why things happen." Clearly, the science of hurricanes has not been heard by many of those who are most at risk of losing life and property, as well as by many of those most favored by position or education and bearing an enormous responsibility, as experts, to act to promote public safety.
Four stars only because I wish this Sterling book were longer, with more development of his settings and technologies. It might be a characteristic of the cyberpunk label that intriguing terms get plopped in the text with little explication, their meaning derived from narrative context. However, many of these terms stick like burrs and travel with me into conversations; they are very pithy. I can't complete the metaphor of comparing extreme weather to the characters because that would give away too much. Suffice it to say that there's an end to every storm.
Cyberpunk in Texas! April 7, 2000
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
This is quite readable--a cyberpunk book that doesn't take place in a huge urban sprawl, and the data being stolen is from Mother Nature, who never gives up secrets easily. From a Mexican black market clinic to a tornado that could cover an entire time zone, several intrepid scientists and one dying part-time drug runner attempt to figure out why tornadoes form, and whether or not one can be stopped before it's too late. Of course, by the end of the book, it's almost too late. It's always nice to see actual science and actual characterization in a book, and kudos for including a "lung enema" at the beginning of the book. I'd say it's about a three and a half star book, but Amazon doesn't let you do that. So enjoy a free half-star, Mr. Sterling.
Sterling's Best Book for Hard SF Action Fans January 19, 2002
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Maybe this is controversial but I would say that this is his best book in the following sense: it has real characters that are sympathetic, it balances his tendency towards over abstraction with a more plot driven approach, and it retains all the best elements of well researched hard sf. Even if you haven't liked him before, but you like more action oriented hard sf, you will like this book.
Hack This May 22, 2003
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Bruce Sterling has delivered quite a powerhouse of the imagination here. This book is a mostly strong mixture of cyberpunk elements along with textbook sci-fi storytelling techniques, in which real scientific research lies at the core of fantastical plot elements. We are given an environmentally devastated near future in which the weather has gotten extremely heavy due to the runaway greenhouse effect, with a team of cyberpunks seeking the ultimate tornado. Sterling has obviously done his homework on meteorology and the possible effects of climate change, as his speculations into potential heavy weather are both fantastic and plausible. This book also displays a very bright writing style with a real flair for outlandish similes and allegories. For example: "...kicked over cars like a giant child disturbing a convention of turtles." Just beware of the rather annoying overuse of the word "hack" without much explanation into what this activity really entails in this future society. Alas, the end of the story is somewhat of a dud given the extensive build-up, and there is a completely unnecessary evil organization appearing incongruously during the climax. But the best aspect of this book is Sterling's disturbingly possible vision of a dysfunctional future caused by violent disruptions in nature, economy, and cyberspace. These are some disturbing speculations that offer a lot of food for thought.
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